Dieting is a Team Sport

As we all know… in BJJ there is a whole lot of discussion about weight and diet, mostly due to making weight for a tournament. However, even non-competitors get plateaus in their dieting regime.

Dieting is never fun and when you don’t have something holding yourself accountable such as a goal weight for a tournament, you can easily get distracted and sidetracked from your goal weight. You say things like “I’ll make up for this brownie tomorrow” or “I have 4 weeks still to lose those 3 pounds.”

Recently I was discussing diets and weight loss goals with some ladies at the gym and everyone had their own excuses for not obtaining their personal goal weight… “kids”, “snacks at work”, etc.

We started a group chat later that evening… which mostly talked about bacon and BJJ. I told them all a requirement for the group was to drink a minimum of 70 oz water daily. We also all log our food on a food tracker and share progress daily; critiquing each other’s mistakes and making recommendations. Holding ourselves, and each other, accountable. That’s was the “payment” to be in the group to discuss the things we love… bacon and BJJ!

We’re now a few weeks into this group chat and everyone has made significant progress. We all feel guilty for our cheats or lack of water consumption, helping us be doubly sure we don’t make that mistake again the next day.

It’s all done in a positive, reinforcing manner… and the best part is, it works!

So, in short, diet with your friends and communicate with them every day. Keep each other, and thus yourself, accountable… especially when they all know BJJ too, otherwise they might choke you!